It will soon be thirty years since Katarzyna Kozyra created “Olympia” – a work that shook the art world. It addresses the topics of illness, death, and society’s perception of the female body. Inspired by Édouard Manet’s famous painting, the piece depicts the artist undergoing cancer treatment; she has lost her hair and wears no makeup.
“Olympia” consists of three large-format photographs and a several-minute-long video. The first image shows Kozyra posing to resemble Olympia from Manet’s painting; the second depicts her on a hospital bed; and the third portrays an elderly lady alone in a contemporary flat. The video documents the artist’s treatment. A satin ribbon tied around the neck of each figure serves as the linking element across all the images and allows the viewer to identify the models as Olympia.
The “Don’t Look Away. Thoughts on ‘Olympia’ by Katarzyna Kozyra” display is not only a reminder of the 1996 artwork but also the premiere of its contemporary interpretation. In 2024, Katarzyna Kozyra once again posed in front of the camera, and thus took up a dialogue with her own piece from nearly three decades ago. The result is a series of new photographs that provoke questions about how – and whether – our perception of the female body, aging, illness, and death has changed.
A key element of the display is an interactive workshop space co-created by the audience, where visitors will be able to share their experiences, ask questions, and search for new meaning together. This part of the exhibition has a progressive nature – it will evolve and develop along with ongoing events.
When you step into the Museum of Photography in Kraków this summer, it will be impossible to look away – from “Olympia” or the topics this work confronts. The display at MuFo is both a return to the iconic piece – one of the most important and groundbreaking projects of critical art – and an invitation to reflect on dignity, corporeality and transience of life, and to seek meaning in the realm we usually choose not to look at.
